Officially, XXIO is designed for the golfer who is affectionately known as a “moderate swing speed player.”
Unofficially, they’re known as seniors and some (but certainly not all) women. XXIO specializes in lightweight gear to help those with moderate swing speeds swing easier and squeeze a little more mileage out of each shot.
At a premium price.
And since XXIO is part of the Srixon family, it would only make sense that it would offer golf balls designed to benefit that same type of player.
That’s what XXIO is offering with its new Hyper RD golf ball line which the company says is designed to pair seamlessly with XXIO clubs.
Can an OEM make a ball that’s designed to “pair seamlessly” with a specific brand of club? Read on, friends, the answer might surprise you.
XXIO Hyper RD golf balls: The not-so-soft skinny
Let’s start with the basics.
According to XXIO, the new Hyper RD is a three-layer, 72-compression golf ball designed for high launch and low spin. That 72 compression puts it on the firmer side, roughly the equivalent of a Bridgestone Tour B RX. As we all know, firmer golf balls deliver more ball speed than softer ones regardless of swing speed. Soft golf balls may feel great at slow swing speeds but ball speed suffers.
If you’re a slower swinger, every little bit helps.
XXIO, along with Srixon, uses what it calls Rebound Frame technology in its woods and irons. It’s a fancy way of saying a flex zone is backed up by a firm zone which is then backed up by another flex zone. The idea is to give the club a little bit more of a trampoline-like boing at impact.
With the Hyper RD golf ball, XXIO is using the same concept. The soft cover, called Hyper Soft (more on that in a moment), is backed by a newly developed firm mantle layer. XXIO calls it a “hyper-resilient” mid-layer that “works quietly beneath the surface to reduce excess spin.”
Gee, I love that kind of talk.
The mantle layer is then backed by a soft Fastlayer core.
XXIO says the new Hyper Soft cover is made from a newly developed ionomer that’s almost as soft as urethane. When backed by the firmer mantle layer, it should provide some decent spin on approach shots. The Fastlayer core (firm-ish on the outside, softer on the inside) keeps spin relatively low off the driver.
Balancing soft feel, spin and ball speed is tricky. Something usually has to give but XXIO is designing the Hyper RD for a specific demographic. It doesn’t really have to perform for a wider audience.
Wind stability
Srixon golf balls are known for their stability in windy conditions. The company tells us it’s not unusual to see its staffers crowding the leaderboard when the wind kicks up on the PGA Tour.
The XXIO Hyper RD features a newly designed 362 Speed Dimple Pattern with seven different-sized dimples. XXIO says the new pattern provides smoother airflow and less resistance, causing the ball to – and I’m quoting here – “continue to fly until landing.”
(In truth, the same can be said of any golf ball. Or any rock, pillow, chunk of wood or lampshade that’s tossed, for that matter. But perhaps we’re nitpicking.)
Anyway, dimple physics are pretty straightforward. Shallower dimples equal higher flight by creating less drag and more lift. Overall size matters, as well. Smaller dimples create a flatter, more penetrating flight, while larger dimples create more lift and higher flight. By varying the size and depths of the dimples, XXIO is promoting overall stability in windy conditions.
And if you’re into alignment aids, the XXIO Hyper RD has a whopper. Like the ball’s XXIO logo, the alignment aid is big, bold and very much in the neo-Aztec/Mayan Revival school of design.
About this “seamless pairing” with XXIO clubs thing …
Building a golf ball to work with a specific brand of club might seem kind of silly and unnecessarily limiting. In one sense, I suppose it is. On the other hand, when the product is as niche as XXIO, there’s really no downside to engineering golf balls for your own line of equipment.
For some reason, the rapidly overused term ecosystem comes to mind.
As with most things we see in golf today, this isn’t a particularly new or revolutionary idea. Spalding did something sort of similar back in the ‘90s when it designed two different balls for optimal performance with the two best-selling drivers of the day. The Top Flite System C was made for the Callaway Big Bertha while the System T was made for the TaylorMade Ti Bubble 2.
From a ball-fitting standpoint, it was actually a pretty good idea. The problem was that Spalding used tradenames and proprietary imagery from Callaway and TaylorMade. Both sued and the System C and System T golf balls very quickly went away.
XXIO Hyper RD price and availability
The XXIO Hyper RD golf balls come in three main colors: Premium White, Premium Pink (white with pink lettering) and Lime Yellow. You can also buy a four-color pack with a sleeve each of Premium Pink, Lime Yellow, Orange and Ruby Red.
Orange and Ruby Red are available only in the four-color pack.
For XXIO’s demographic (mostly aging, well-funded golfers), $49.99 per dozen isn’t unreasonable, especially for those gaming XXIO clubs. I suppose you could, if you wanted, play the Hyper RD if you gamed lightweight clubs other than XXIO.
No one will report you if you did.
If you’re not in the demographic, well, there are plenty of choices out there for you.
The XXIO Hyper RD golf balls will be available in stores and online on Jan. 29.
For more information, hit up the XXIO website.
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